This book has been written for almost two months, and now it is written about Chongzhen hanging himself and the Ming Dynasty falls. After writing about this, there is really a lot to say in the heart, and it cannot be said one by one in the book, so I will talk about it in a separate chapter.

Today, let’s talk about this strange emperor in Chinese history - Chongzhen. Chongzhen had nothing to say in the first half of his life, and it was similar to other royal families in the Ming Dynasty. He grew up happily in Beijing, then waited to grow up and get married, then enthrone the country, and then lived a happy life like a breeding pig. Finally, when the peasant army entered the city, they were either killed or fled.

But Chongzhen, that is, Zhu Youjian, was a prince with aspirations. There were very few records in the history books before Zhu Youjian ascended the throne, but judging from the eunuch party after he came to power, Zhu Youjian should have been an ideal young man when he was young. Just like many angry young people on the Internet now, he thinks about what he should do if I was an emperor every day.

I have also reviewed the case for Emperor Tianqi in the book, so I won’t talk about it here. According to the ability to govern the country, Emperor Wanli, the grandfather of Zhu Youjian, can be considered a politician. Wanli, who has not been to court for more than 20 years, can still grasp the current affairs of the court. This is very admirable.

Before his death, Wanli told his heir, the unlucky emperor, Ming Guangzong Zhu Changluo, that he should never believe in the civil officials of the foreign court, and that he should never hand over the silver from the treasury.

But the unlucky emperor who had been crown prince for 39 years handed over millions of taels of silver on the first day of his arrival in power, in exchange for a few words of praise from the wise king. But if Zhu Changluo could live, he was an adult after all, and adults would have to consider the psychology of adults. In addition, Zhu Changluo was indeed a kind person, and with the support of civil officials, things might not be as complicated as they would twenty years later.

Unexpectedly, Zhu Changluo died after being reigned for a month. The death was unknown. He had a chance to talk about his death. After Zhu Changluo's death, another child, Zhu Youzhao, came to power. This is the carpenter emperor.

Zhu Youxiao's rule was divided into two parts. In the past few years, like his father Zhu Changluo, he relied entirely on the ministers of the Donglin Party. The guys of the Donglin Party cannot be said to be incapable, but their abilities are all used to deal with political enemies. The Donglin people took advantage of the success of obedience to exclude the officials of Donglin, the Central African, and the Central African.

In the early days, Zhu Youxiao didn't know how to be an emperor, but after several years of practice, he understood one thing, that is, checks and balances. However, at that time, all the officials of the Donglin Party in the Central African Republic were basically excluded. Zhu Youxiao had no choice. What could he do at this time? He could only learn from the emperors of all dynasties. He could not learn from the strength of Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, and he did not have the prestige of those two emperors. It would be very simple to learn from other emperors, and use eunuchs to check and balance civil officials.

So the nine thousand years later, the * stage was successfully released. Wei Zhongxian's power was caused by current affairs. Even without Wei Zhongxian, there would be Li Zhongxian and Zhang Zhongxian, because the emperor needed a second wave of forces to check and balance the Donglin Party.

The next four years were the last four years of Zhu Youxiao's rule. These four years seemed to be bloody in the central government. But I couldn't feel it at all. You should know that the Little Binghe began since the end of the Wanli period. In the past few years, Zhu Youxiao's reign has not occurred. It has to be said that Zhu Youxiao still has some means to govern the country.

If Zhu Youxiao could survive until his seventies and eighties, the Ming Dynasty might not have perished. The Qing Dynasty might have existed as a local Chinese regime like their ancestor Jin Dynasty. But Zhu Youxiao died without understanding it, and then our angry young emperor Chongzhen came to power.

After Zhu Youjian came to power, he began to deal with the old eunuch Wei. In the highly centralized dynasty of the late Ming Dynasty, Wei Zhongxian had no ability to resist at all, so he was quickly dealt with.

The only three troops that support an empire are civil officials and emperors. If Zhu Youjian, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di are as strong as they are, it would be easy. Otherwise, you could learn from Zhu Youzhang and Zhu Zai'an, and give the court affairs to civil officials, do something they like, like women or anything else.

But our Emperor Chongzhen chose the third way, which was to go to the front of the stage to fight with the civil officials. You must know that the system of imperial power, eunuchs and civil officials in the Ming Dynasty had been implemented for two hundred years. You, Zhu Youjian, did not have the courage of Zhu Yuanzhang, nor did you have the ruthlessness of Zhu Di, and you still wanted to learn their methods of governing the country? So the Ming Dynasty had already reached the end since Zhu Youjian came to power.

It's like a new leader comes to a unit, and a new leader naturally needs to do something when taking office. But if the new leader doesn't understand business knowledge, the unit must be in chaos for a while. If the new leader learns business, or if the superiors are in trouble, they will transfer the chaotic leader away.

But the Ming Dynasty was not a unit, not a dozen people. It was a country and a big country with a population of more than 100 million. Zhu Youjian came to power and saw that he was a new leader who did not understand business.

The first thing is to recover the mining supervision and tax supervision. You must know that the money collected by these two things is controlled by Zhu Youjian personally. Adults know that whoever has no money in this world can get along with you? Does it rely on personal contribution? Originally, the Salt Administration could still collect more than three million taels of silver in the seventh year of the Tianqi period, but after Zhu Youjian came to power, he handed over the management of the salt administration to the civil servants, and collected 300 taels of taels in the first year, but in the second year, there was no one tael. Financial bankruptcy was Zhu Youjian's biggest mistake.

The second thing is to change government agencies and laws at will. You should know that the Ming Dynasty has a history of more than 200 years, and various institutions have formed a large number of interest groups. This is not something you can abolish. After Chongzhen came to power, he killed Wei Zhongxian. The second month, the censor flattered him and said, "There is the current national finances, and he also raised a group of civil servants who eat idle meals. For the sake of the country and the people, let's abolish the post station system. If the law is done, just stamp a piece of paper, but what should I do if more than 100,000 post stations across the country?" So Li Zicheng came out.

There is also the case of Yuan Chonghuan. Yuan Chonghuan has a lot of comments in history, so let’s not mention his personal evaluation. In order to please the emperor, Yuan Chonghuan came up with a strategy of pacifying Liao for three years. This matter is suspected of bragging about becoming an official. It’s nothing. Those who have been officials know that what they say is different from what they do. But Zhu Youjian actually believed it. From this, we can see how naive Emperor Chongzhen was. His grandfather and brother spent countless money in Liaodong, and countless people died and could not handle the Qing Dynasty. Zhu Youjian could actually believe that Yuan Heizi (Yuan Chonghuan is very short and has dark skin) could handle it in three years.

The third and most important thing is that Zhu Youjian has a bad relationship with officials. It can be seen from the future. Zhu Yunwen was not dead yet, but he just ran away, and many people across the country followed him to die. When Zhu Qizhen, the Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, had many ministers who wanted to go to Oirat to go to jail with the emperor. After Zhu Youjian died, all the people who died for him in Beijing could count the palm of his hand. You may say that these are shameless guys of the Donglin Party, and they all wanted to go to Li Zicheng to become an official. But later in the Southern Ming Dynasty, many Donglin Party members died for Emperor Hongguang Zhu Yousong.

Let me give you an example here. Chongzhen had a minister of War Wang Qia. This guy was originally a censor. When Zhu Youjian saw that he was handsome, he let him be the minister of the Ministry of War. Wang Qia didn’t understand business at all, but this guy was a practical man and could learn if he didn’t know. He basically did not make any big mistakes in his tenure as a minister of War. However, the Later Jin Dynasty once entered the pass and burned and killed him in Beijing. Zhu Youjian was very annoyed. He felt that someone would come out to take responsibility for such a big thing. Of course, the minister of War was the first choice, so he locked up Wang Qia, the handsome man. Wang Qia didn’t wait for Chongzhen to kill him and died of illness in prison.

As long as you have been in society for a few years, you will know that if you want your subordinates to work, you must hold on to any problem for them. You cannot make a credit for the leader. If you make a mistake, the leader will give you a 625th chance, so that the subordinate will work for your leader. Therefore, this is a bad relationship with officials, which is the main reason for Zhu Youjian's failure.

I wrote a chapter today to say what I cannot say in the book. It can be said that the last Han regime was destroyed by Zhu Youjian, the wise and powerful emperor. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, China was no less than the mainstream countries at that time, no matter from which perspective, it was a pity that the Qing Dynasty came in later generations. I am not saying bad things about the Qing Dynasty here, but the Qing Dynasty also made a lot of contributions to China, for example, the territory of the country is laid by the Qing Dynasty.

However, the Qing Dynasty was an alien regime, and with too few people, they naturally had to suppress the ideas of intellectuals. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty was a desert in the cultural world. For more than 200 years, the rise of Han landlords in the Qing Dynasty only appeared in the late Qing Dynasty. Intellectuals could only examine their previous thoughts every day in the old paper, and they did not have the mentality of intellectuals in the Ming Dynasty.
Chapter completed!